


Lypophrenia

by Ingi



Series: I’ll let you know that all this time I’ve been afraid [6]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Cooking, Erejean Week, Erejean Week 2015, Fluff and Angst, M/M, cook Eren, painter Jean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-04
Updated: 2015-04-04
Packaged: 2018-03-19 22:45:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3627039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ingi/pseuds/Ingi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>~ Lypophrenia: a feeling of sadness, seemingly without a cause. ~</p><p>  <em>Three days with that dreading sensation clutching his throat, an invisible threat he couldn't identify, as if he were getting into a trap too well planned to avoid even when he knew what was happening. Inevitable, inescapable; those weren't words he appreciated, and yet... It got stronger every day, simple discomfort turning into restlessness turning into anxiety.</em></p><p>Eren is so stupidly gloomy he can't even crack up at the horrible cook Jean is (well, not much anyway).</p><p>(#They don't know how to flirt so they bicker; #Somehow there are frying pans and saucepans in the SnK universe; #Also Jean's horrid at showing worry but okay at comforting)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lypophrenia

**Author's Note:**

> My fics are getting shorter because I'm in a race against time... and I'm losing. So that's it, at least I'll offer some Erejean for the Erejean Week (don't ask me about quality, though; I'm not very happy with myself right now).  
> Besides, for once I haven't twisted the plot! (not much, uhm)
> 
> This time I'm borrowing "Cha-ching" (still Imagine Dragons, yep; doesn't make much sense at this point, but who cares).

_I don’t sleep so well at night,_  
_waiting up and shivering._  
_Hate is gone and money’s tight._  
_This little home that I’m living in._

Three days.

Eren had been counting. Three days, which meant seventy two hours, which meant... well, he wasn't _that_ good with maths. Three days with that dreading sensation clutching his throat, an invisible threat he couldn't identify, as if he were getting into a trap too well planned to avoid even when he knew what was happening. Inevitable, inescapable; those weren't words he appreciated, and yet...

It got stronger every day, simple discomfort turning into restlessness turning into anxiety. There was a hole in his chest, at those times, an empty void of nothingness that itched around the borders like an open wound. Sometimes he found himself trying to remember what he was fighting for, _why_ ; sometimes he had to remind himself of things he used to held close to the heart, knowledge slipping away, blurring among the mist of absent minded thoughts; he couldn't tell dreams and reality apart anymore, he felt as if he were losing himself.

Who would have thought; Jean was an anchor to the real world, and that was actually useful. Eren gripped his hand so hard it hurt, leant on him in the worse moments, but he never complaint. Maybe he understood how much he needed it.

One night he couldn't even sleep, too troubled to do anything else than staring out the window, into the darkness, an arm tossed over Jean's sleeping form beside him (for no apparent reason, he had started going to sleep facing him instead of giving him his back, and Eren hadn't known how much he'd wanted that until it was unexpectedly given to him). He was lost in deep thoughts, replaying scenes of the past in his mind to soak in the comfort they emanated, when he reached one of Mikasa's birthday.

They had been all together, then, and she had her usual indifferent face even if her lips were trembling slightly, touched by the care Carla Jäeger was putting in baking her a small cake. The eminent doctor Grisha Jäeger had left the laboratory and turned back into their father, just for a while, and was observing them with a smile. Eren was pretty sure he'd been jumping around and alternating between excited chirps directed to himself and mindless chatter towards different members of his family. It was a happy day, the smell in the kitchen had been absolutely worth salivating, and when his mother said the cake was ready they had... _Wait_.

A bubble of panic began growing in him at the terrifying realisation he couldn't quite remember the scene. He knew what happened movement after movement with an accuracy that would have surprised Captain Levi, who always complaint about how he forgot even the exercise he was doing in that very moment: his mother put the cake on the table, his father mumbled something about her cooking talent and knocked a glass over immediately after, water started spreading through the tablecloth and Mikasa laughed quietly while Carla chided Grisha and... ( _how did she look when she was exasperated? I think... I think she got a crinkle between her eyebrows and... no, that wasn't it, her eyes shone_ that _way... yeah, they did... they were brown, brown eyes, but gold brown or soil brown or chocolate brown?_ ).  
He had forgotten how his mother looked like, he had forgotten how his father looked like; their faces were hazy blurs in his memory, making them vague representations that spoke like them but weren't them, ghosts of mist ( _ghosts, because they're dead, dead, dead_ ).

He was losing them, time was tearing them away from him and he couldn't do anything, and... and suddenly he couldn't breathe that well. He'd broken down crying a while ago, but only noticed when he bit his lip and tasted the salt of tears there ( _so that's why everything's so blurry_ ). A calming chant started in his mind ( _it's alright, it's alright, it's alright_ ), but what sounded like him at first abruptly became Carla's voice, and then Grisha's, and then he was crying even harder because no, it wasn't fucking alright, not at all.

"Jean" Eren whispered, shaking him by the shoulders and trying to avoid the bed shaking with him (honestly, the last thing he needed was a chorus of yells by indignant friends at being woken up). It was the first time Jean's light sleep became useful, because it didn't take much for his eyes to flutter open, drowsy and confused.

"Eren?" he made sure in low voice, rough from sleep. "You've gotten quite a like for waking me up in the middle of the night, you little shit. Why is it that you only sleep like a log when you're in your own bunk?" Eren could pinpoint the exact moment in which he noticed his teary face, for his stare went from faintly annoyed to concerned in a rather abrupt way. "Nightmares again?" He looked puzzled when he received a slight shake of head and no explanation, but Eren really couldn't talk, couldn't find the words, couldn't... it got better when Jean wrapped an arm around him too and pushed his forehead against his, but it wasn't enough, not yet. "Fuck, what is it then? Y'know, I can't do much if you don't..."

"I can't remember" Eren finally uttered quietly, trembling in frustration, and stared right into Jean's wide eyes with a determination he didn't feel. "I can't remember my mother's face, my father's. I can't remember how my own parents were like. I can't remember" he repeated, desperation increasing the longer he spent talking instead of trying to recover their faces.

"Eren..." his eyes were soft again, but also calm, too calm ( _you don't fucking get the situation, do you?_ ).

"No, you don't understand. They're fading, they're fading from my memory and one day I'll completely forget them, and then I'll have nothing, _nothing_ " the last word was a louder shriek than expected, muffled by Jean's fingers suddenly pressing against his lips just for a second. "You don't understand" he insisted in a mutter, catching his hand before it had the chance to get further away and clutching it. "You don't understand, Jean, you don't. Armin said... Armin said that when someone... dies... they aren't really dead... not until... not until you forget them, because... because they live in you. But I'm forgetting them, Jean, I'm... forgetting..."

He took in a sharp inhale of breath, shaking a bit and unable to stop it, and Jean brought his free hand to stroke his hair with a gentleness that didn't suit him at all. "It's alright, Eren, c'mon, it's alright."

"It's not fucking alright" he hissed, drawing away from his tenderness, from his lies. "The world isn't fucking alright, my parents aren't fucking alright, I'm not fucking alright. Nothing's ever fucking alright and you know it."

"I know" Jean replied carelessly. "Things aren't ever alright, but it's alright for you to cry. Just this once" he added quickly, giving him a crooked smile that didn't quite settle in his face in the right way, but it didn't matter, it didn't, and Eren smiled back faintly. "You're pampered enough. The next thing will be having a fucking panic attack because someone has stepped on a bug."

"It's a small tragedy all the same" he mumbled with apathy. It was a much better idea to snuggle against Jean's chest and breathe in, just breathe in, sleep creeping up to him again slowly. "I don't want to forget them, Jean."

There was a short silence, and then Jean whispered in his ear "You won't", some indistinguishable emotion in his voice that made Eren's toes curl in anticipation, and he knew too well that Jean was obnoxiously honest and never said anything he didn't mean, not even to comfort him (especially not to comfort him), so he _believed_.  
He didn't have any nightmares that night.

* * *

_"You’ve got to live your life_  
_while your blood is boiling._  
_These doors won’t open_  
_while you stand and watch them._  
_Oh oh oh, what is with you?_  
_Oh oh oh, I’ve never seen this side of you."_

Cooking duty was awesome. It really, really was, because you didn't have to talk to food, you didn't even have to think too much to do something with it; also, you worked with ingredients that usually smelled good, to do something with them that made them smell even better, and when you finished you got a product that you could eat and tasted great. And you even got to smash or cut or stir things with all the viciousness you wanted.

So Eren actually liked cooking duty... but not so much when he was feeling cranky and gloomy and sorry for himself. Besides, Jean was the worst cook he'd ever had the displeasure to see in action, and the Commander always put him in cooking duty since he noticed he was the only one who managed to keep Sasha out of the kitchen (a quite impressing ability, Eren had to give him that). They were bound to work together at some point, Eren knew, but he dreaded thinking about it; even if he'd thought it couldn't be that bad, he'd heard horrible tales of how food burned out of the blue and vegetables refused to be sliced when Jean was in the kitchen... well, lucky him; it was worse, so much worse.

Jean was a fucking walking disaster. Cooking duty had started only ten minutes ago and he'd already poured hot water over himself, confused a saucepan with a frying pan (how in hell, Eren didn't have the slightest idea), and cut his finger while he tried to peel a potato. He was absolutely, hopelessly _useless_. Eren didn't even feel like making fun of him (not much, anyway), it was just too easy.

"I can't believe you're _allowed_ to get in here" he couldn't resist saying, his attention drifting away from the vegetables he was cooking.

"I can't believe you haven't fucked up anything yet" Jean replied surly.

"That's rich coming from you."

"Look, I'm naturally good at fucking _everything_ , it was unlikely I wouldn't have at least one thing to be bad at."

"You're not bad" Eren chided gently, and offered him a mischevious grin. "You're a _disaster_."

Jean gave him the most murderous glare he was capable of, probably after picking it up from Mikasa, and Eren couldn't say he was grateful for her teaching _his_ idiot such a technique. He still couldn't overcome the irrational fear _her_ glare provoked in him, he didn't even want to think about Jean perfectioning his (because he knew that, in his case, the fear wouldn't be irrational at all; Mikasa would _probably_ never lay a finger on him, but Jean wasn't exactly reluctant at punching him).

"Something's wrong with you" Jean blurted out, surprisingly. "And I don't mean your inability to acept how fucking awesome I am, although I won't deny that's worrying too."

"You're probably as awesome as your cooking, fucktart" Eren dodged, adding some meat into the saucepan with what he hoped was a nonchalant gesture.

"You can't tell, you haven't ever tasted my cooking."

"And I'd never want to. I recognize a shitty cook when I see one."

"I'm fucking _astonished_ at my ability to kiss a mouth that sputters so much nonsense." Before Eren had the chance to retort something like 'but you like my mouth', Jean raised a wry brow and added "Also, don't think I haven't noticed what you're doing. Maybe I've been too nice, lemme rephrase it: what the hell is wrong with you dumb fuck?"

"You're so charming" Eren snorted.

"And you're so bad at sarcasm. Gonna answer or not?"

Eren's answer was to turn his back on him and feign he hadn't heard him; the weird sounds the saucepan was doing were very helpful with that, giving him a credible excuse. It wasn't difficult to ignore Jean's stupid face when he noticed how the stew smelled, like something that would really turn out nice when finished. He hoovered over the saucepan, sniffed critically, and threw in some more vegetables to thicken the sauce; stirring it had an hypnotizing quality, or he might just be terribly out of it, because he fixed his eyes inside the saucepan and didn't think about anything until a chuckle coming from his back distracted him. "What?" he scowled, sounding harsher than intended.

Jean didn't seem to mind; he was grinning wildly when Eren turned to stare at him (and there was that damn fondness in his eyes that almost made him smile too). "You looked so focused... fuck, just like Armin with his books and maps and _things_. Quite disturbing, actually, but... Dunno, kind of... cute too, I guess."

"The lack of insults in your speech is starting to scare me" Eren said dumbly, unexpectedly embarrassed.

"Oh, sorry. That frowny face of yours is idiotic and you really, really don't know shit about flirting."

"Wait, were you _flirting_?"

It was unbelievable, so fucking unbelievable, but there Jean was, blushing in an oddly appealing way and shaking his head wildly, as if Eren didn't know how to interprete him by now (that definitely spelled 'you got me there' in capital letters). "Fuck, _no_. I wasn't flirting, you dickhead." Eren smiled brightly and closed the small space separating them with two steps, smashing his lips against his with no warning or delicacy. Jean pushed him away, although his hands curled around his shirt and kept him close " _You_. Geez, Jäeger, don't wanna catch your germs or whatever."

"I'm fit as a fiddle!" he announced happily before kissing him again. Jean didn't resist this time (in fact, he returned the kiss enthusiastically), but of course he'd have a comment to do when they drew apart.

"Didn't mean it that way. You'll make me ask Hanji if stupidity is contagious."

"You love me" Eren shrugged, going back to the stew. He was trying to break whichever curse Jean had that made people unable to cook a decent meal when he was near, and him burning the stew wouldn't help at all.

"Yeah, I do" Jean sighed, making no attempt at all to lend a hand (all for the better, actually), and right a second after his eyes widened. "Oh fuck, it _is_ contagious then."

There was a pause before both of them dissolved into childish giggles ( _shit, I love this jerk too, a lot_ ). For some unknown reason, the sense of dread that had been tormenting him only got stronger when the happy pain in his stomach dissipated, and suddenly Eren was so, _so_ tired and just wanted it all out in the open, ready to be judged and tored apart by Jean's overly critical nature, so he gave in. "I don't know what's wrong, but I'm sure _something_ is. I think... what's wrong is that I don't know what's wrong. I'm fucking fed up."

"Finally" Jean sighed, running a hand through his hair, and Eren glared at him. "Fucking _finally_. I was wondering how much it would take you to _explode_ after being constantly hopeful and upbeat. No one can endure that for too long, not all the time."

"It's not that! I haven't stopped believing, I haven't stopped fighting!"

"Fuck, I know that! But you're allowed to doubt yourself and what you're doing, Eren. In fact, you should do it regulary; to keep some sense of reality and all that shit."

"It's not that" he insisted, picking up a spoon and clutching it with so much force it actually hurt. "I just have a bad feeling."

"Well..." Jean looked thoughtful, and somehow it made him think he'd make it better, he'd find a way to convince him everything was just fine, because if Jean didn't feel nervous then nobody should, he was a fucking pessimist like that. "There have been rumors going around for a while. It didn't ever occur to me you'd pick them up. They're weird anyway, nothing to be taken seriously, but still... people say the Commander is going to give up, to take the Legion apart." At Eren's outraged face, he waved his hand dismissively "C'mon, I know it's bullshit. I mean, the Commander _does_ look worried lately, but doesn't he always? Just because he talks a lot more with Hanji and no one else is allowed to listen, not even the Captain... it doesn't mean anything. Probably. So don't think too much about it." He huffed and smirked at him "You were never good at that anyway."

"Fuck you" Eren answered kindly, and offered him a spoonful of stew. "Try it."

"Since you're the one who's cooked that, I'm pretty sure it's poisonous" Jean pointed out, regarding it warily. "But fuck, this is the Survey Corps, I was gonna die sooner or later."

Eren beamed at that, not tearing his gaze away from him in hopes of catching the first expression he did when he tried it; that was usually the easiest way to understand what he was really feeling while he blurted out crap like he always did. "So? How is it?" he asked, even if he'd seen the pleased (and surprised) gesture that had crossed his face a moment ago.

"Awful" was his reply. "You'll have to gimme some more, though. It does _not_ seem poisonous after all, but you never know."

* * *

_Hey, we are all living_  
_till we grow older._  
_You’ll be the worker,_  
_I’ll be the soldier._  
_Now let me hear those sounds you sing to me._

It was fucking _weird_.

Jean suddenly seemed to be spending a lot of time with Mikasa, like _tons_ of time, for the last few days. It couldn't even make him jealous, for he'd already learnt that the only bond his sister and his... uhm, _partner_ shared was plainly thanks to him; apparently, Mikasa trusted Jean enough to leave Eren in his hands and had decided he was worth her respect, but there wasn't anything else, and especially not anything even remotely related with a romantic view.

So he couldn't feel jealous, but that was even worse, because if it wasn't that Mikasa and Jean were hooking up, then he had no idea of what was happening. And yet he was sure it was creepy as hell. Even more than when Jean talked with Armin in that odd way they did that sounded like an entirely different language.

Eren liked to think he was the type of person that not only faced his problems but punched them in the face (which was his way of acting on them), and not knowing what those two were plotting was one at the moment. Besides, he had a _big_ mouth he wasn't very skilled at keeping shut, so he ended up confronting Jean one morning, during cooking duty. He was chopping carrots and Jean was just there being pretty, leaning against the counter and staring at him as if he were some kind of wonder or puzzle he had to solve, and that was fucking hilarious because, well, Eren thought just that about _him_.

"Why does it look like you're pining over Mikasa _again_?" he asked ( _fuck, filter brain-mouth not working so well_ ).

Jean blinked a few times and Eren was sure he was going to laugh, but no, he actually seemed _embarrassed_ ( _not good, not good, not good_ ). "I'm not" he assured anyway, folding his arms over his chest. "She's been helping me with something."

"With _what_?" And if there was a bit of suspicion seeping into his voice, he couldn't be blamed.

"With _something_ , Eren, geez."

"So you aren't gonna tell me. Great, fuck, then I won't _poison_ you with my cooking. Maybe I could ask Sasha to taste this, what do you think?"

That was a real threat for Jean, considering how much he _loved_ his cooking (because he did, Eren had no doubt about it even if he pretended to believe all that crap about how gross his food was or whatever). He let out an exasperated sigh and glared at him "Fine, _fine_ , fuckard, you win. It's almost finished anyway, just... be a little patient for once in your wretched life."

Eren _was_ patient, indeed, for he had to wait for the whole morning and part of the afternoon before Jean deigned to lead him to the cabins, pushing him on the bed rather roughly. For a moment, he was almost sure Jean had been stupid enough to ask Mikasa for advice about how to get laid or something (which would have been priceless to watch, but also very, very frightening), and actually said it out loud, what made Jean snort and flick him on the forehead. Then he started humming to himself, a quiet tune Eren had never heard before, and he even felt a bit sorry to interrupt him.

"Are you gonna explain what have you two been planning?"

"We haven't been planning _anything_ , I told you. Who do you think we are, Erwin and Armin?" Jean mumbled grumpily, fetching his portfolio from behind the bed, and Eren's heart skipped a beat ( _what have you done, you glorious idiot?_ ). He still kept the drawing he'd given him, the one of him as a Titan, and it was still as powerful and moving as the first time he'd seen it, months ago. "Remember a few nights ago, when you freaked out because you were afraid you'd forget your parents? I asked Mikasa... uh, I asked her about them, that's all" he cleared his throat, pretending it wasn't a big deal (when it fucking _was_ , of course it was), and handed him a drawing, just like Eren had been expecting.

His very skin was tingling while he took it, contemplated it, and felt it like a physical presence behind him, warming his heart. Carla and Grisha Jäeger were staring at him from the drawing, as expressive and evocative as all of Jean's pieces of art, both with dark hair and eyes, his father's thoughtful and hid by round glasses and his mother's gentle but strong. It looked like a family portrait, with his arm resting loosely around her shoulders and her hand probably pressing against his back, both wearing casual clothes that Eren remembered from sunny spring mornings; it kinda made him want to cry.  
He spotted unexpected details everywhere, like those small wrinkles Carla got by the corner of her lips when she smiled _that_ way and a birthmark on Grisha's half-covered arm, and couldn't help thinking how talented Jean was, how amazing Mikasa's memory, how much work they both had had to put in it to allow Jean to represent the very soul of two people he hadn't even seen before, not even once, and much less gotten to know.

"This is perfect. They're... they were just like that, they..." he mumbled, gazing back at Jean. "How have you even drawn this?"

"Mikasa's the most critical person I've seen in a long time, I swear" Jean replied, a half-smile grazing his face. "I had to show her, of course, so she'd tell me how it was going, and she didn't leave me alone until I couldn't do it any better, by her own words. Still wondering if that was a compliment or not, though."

"I'm sure it was."

Jean frowned slightly, as if trying to figure out whatever Eren was kidding or not, and finally nodded "Hope so. I thought about what you said, all that about keeping people alive by remembering them, and it didn't sound bad, but... maybe it's too much pressure, to trust someone's existence in a memory, so I wanted you to know Mikasa remembers too, if anything. And... dunno, leave another proof they existed or something. Geez, am I even making sense?"

He rubbed his forehead in frustration, but Eren didn't care much at that point if he was making sense or not (although he _was_ , and he'd understood perfectly what he meant, and it was actually a fucking relief). The painful feeling of the last days, the one that he hadn't been able to muffle by ignoring it, cooking or accepting Jean's arguments, softened a great deal.

"Sometimes it's really worth bearing with you" he said, because he'd never been good at giving compliments anyway (not to Jean, at least).

"Compliments aren't your thing, are they?" was precisely what he pointed out.

Eren grinned, unable to pass up the opportunity, and reached out to poke at his arm "But you love me."

"Yeah. I do."

 _I don’t think it’s quite the same_  
_just running out to feel the rain._  
_Staring as the stars parade._  
_Are they telling me it’s gonna be okay?_

**Author's Note:**

> Jean fixes everything with drawings because he's an awkward dork. Just sayin'.  
> And these two definitely aren't normal people with normal conversations.


End file.
